


Discovery

by WellofHavoc



Series: Compromise [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Matt Murdock, M/M, Other, Scenting, Secret Identity, omega Frank Castle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 14:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30056982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellofHavoc/pseuds/WellofHavoc
Summary: The Punisher isn't ashamed of his omega status, but he isn't exactly flaunting it either. The only reason Matt knows at all is because of his superior sense of smell. When Matt reveals he knows, however, Frank isn't too trusting and they come to an agreement.[They aren't explicitly together in this fic, hence the implied tag, but this is the backstory for HOW they get together, which will be referenced in later fics I publish in the omegaverse.]
Relationships: Frank Castle/Matt Murdock (implied)
Series: Compromise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211219
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Discovery

As soon as the media could put Frank Castle’s name to “The Punisher” there was a careful trail of coverups laid over the more sympathetic areas of his past. The public wouldn’t know he had a family, they wouldn’t know the extent of his military service, and they definitely wouldn’t know his designation as an omega.

Karen found out from the hospital records- an omegan John Doe illegally resuscitated after being listed under an even more illegal DNR- and told both of her “bosses” as much once she was sure it was the same man. Matt had already known, of course. He’d known as soon as he’d met the man, the faint smell lingering to his suit even after Foggy had dragged him home.

Even an alpha like Foggy couldn’t even smell the traces Matt was sure anyone would call “soft” or “sweet” due to their association with an omega. Matt’s nose, sharper than any alpha’s, had been the only one able to smell it on Frank in the hospital, in the courtroom, and now again in the New York air as he skirted the edge of the once-desolate construction site.

“Once-desolate,” as it had been firmly abandoned by the company setting up to build an office building or some other useless structure, but it now served as a pick up location for a handful of fences working for the remnants of the Irish.

Below where he sat on the skeleton of the half-finished building, Matt could hear a handful of Irish, the men they were buying from, and the “product:” a young, scared girl with enough hope left to beg for her parents.

Matt readied himself to jump down when he heard them snap at her, his grapple fixed on the beam beside him. He knew she wouldn’t stay quiet, just as he knew they’d retaliate either by hitting her or yelling over her cries.

They wouldn’t get the chance, her scream echoing through the building under the clang of a gunshot.

The man who held her arm fell next to her, his hand now over his own side as he let out a cry of his own.

Matt’s head flicked up, judging where the noise had come from. Though he’d known Frank was in the building from his smell, it was only then he realized that the man was above him in the building’s rafters.

He didn’t stay up there. Instead, he dropped down by way of his own grapple, rattling off two more shots, this time for one of the members who’d drawn his gun to blast off his hand and send the other man holding the girl to the ground. That left only two men standing by the time Frank unhooked himself from his line and dove behind a set of crates in time for the Irish to return fire.

With a frustrated groan, Matt propelled himself down as well, only drawing the attention of the man holding his shoulder as he scrambled to keep the girl from running.

Matt went after him, knocking him out with a swift kick before turning to the girl.

“Hide,” he said, “but stay in the building. I’ll get you back to your parents. I promise.”

He had no doubt that she trusted him to do just that, her heart having leapt at the sight of him in that familiar way. She breathed easier once he’d taken out the man at her side. Still, he felt her head turn to where Frank had disappeared before she made a break for some of the shelving on the side of the building, uncertainty guiding her steps.

Whether she feared him or feared _for_ him, Matt didn’t know. He didn’t even know what he feared regarding the Punisher, if he feared anything at all. 

The gunmen took note of him as they turned around to collect the girl and run, instead finding the Devil between them and the exit.

Matt moved forward, punching the one on his right in the face and kicking him in the chest to send him backwards. With the momentum of his kick, he swung his leg down and to the left to wrap it over the barrel of the other member’s gun before it fired uselessly into the ground. Then his fist came down on his face as well, sending him to the floor.

The gun stayed tucked under his leg when the man fell limp, Matt letting it drop as he returned to stand.

“You still there?” he asked.

He didn’t have to, as he could hear the heartbeat still echoing from behind the crates.

Still, he wanted to give Frank the opportunity to make himself known. It was better that Frank be in control when he emerged, gun still in hand, from his place on the floor.

“Where the hell did you come from?” he asked.

“I should be asking you that,” Matt said with a smirk. “Thought you were heading back out of town.”

“Oh, out of ‘your city?’” Frank asked, a condescending bite just under his growl.

Matt didn’t deny that, attention pulled away when a loud clang drew his and Frank’s attention to the scared girl still clinging to the exposed steel beam she’d ducked under.

 _“You_ should probably handle this,” Frank said, turning to the cord still attached to the ceiling. “If you do, I’ll consider leaving this scum for the _pigs_ to scrape up.”

And Matt did, returning the club he’d used to scale down the wall to its proper place on his hip so that he could take the girl into his arms.

She mumbled a thank you against _his_ shoulder, though he knew she was straining to look over him at the Punisher as he climbed up to his perch to gather the rest of his equipment. Matt regarded him with a pity he didn’t dare not voice, adjusting the girl in his arms and stealing away into the night.

* * *

The sweet scent again caught his nose a few nights after. The setting was comparatively calm. Daredevil found himself atop a parking garage with daybreak approaching and the night almost behind him.

Perhaps it was that glow of curiosity in the darkness of boredom that led him down into the garage. The scent’s trail snaked into a service door meant for employees. It hadn’t seen some in some time, if the state of it was any indication. The lock long snapped to allow people like Matt to gently push it open, and Frank’s scent was the only one that clung to its metal.

It also clung to the stairwell, decorated in wires that hung in bushels from its walls. Energy hummed through them, the noise guiding Matt to another door. Once there, he heard a gun cock on the other side.

“I’m friendly if you are,” he said aloud.

Frank didn't really laugh, though Matt could hear his smile when he said, “Will you settle for passive aggressive?”

It was a glock, so he was prepared to wait for the sound of the cartridge sliding out. It didn’t, but he took that when paired with the amusement in Frank’s tone as permission to enter, arms at his sides as soon as the door was behind him.

“Going to keep that up all night?”

The shred of amusement shattered with the question, “What are you doing here?”

“Just wanted to see what brought you back. We didn’t exactly get to finish our conversation a few nights ago.”

Frank let out a low breath huff, his fingers sliding around the trigger at the same time the cartridge fell from the gun to uncock it in one, fluid movement. He caught the bullets in his other hand as they slid from the chamber, setting both pieces onto the desk behind him.

“Was there much to say?” he asked as he stood, a picture being painted of the rest of the room with each step. 

It was a cramped space meant for switches and wires. Even the desk Frank sat at was a small shelf-like structure meant only for working on small projects that would take a long time. If it was much bigger, it probably wouldn’t leave enough room for the steel chair Frank left behind as he moved to gather up a few belongings from the floor.

“Did you just come back for this stuff? Or was this your attempt at setting up a new spot?” Matt asked, already knowing the answer.

“New spot,” Frank answered anyway. “At least, it was until you showed up. How do you always seem to find me?”

“Smell, mostly.”

The tote Frank was holding up by one handle fell from his hand with a thud as a grunt of “Aw _shit,”_ escaped his lips. He turned to face Matt, hatred pouring from him in waves. “And what kind of smell, is that?”

Matt put up his hands, realizing his mistake. “I didn’t mean like _that.”_

“Then how’d you mean it?” Frank’s hand skimmed along the wall next to him, fingers tracing the ridge Matt knew he’d stored another glock.

He couldn’t blame the other man for being cautious, just as he couldn’t blame his heart rate for picking up at the indication that he may have been scenting without thinking about it.

“You’re not scenting,” he said first, relieved when that got Frank’s shoulders to drop as the tension fell from them. “I just have a very strong nose. I’d have found you if you were a beta, even.”

“But you _could_ smell that I was an omega.” His hand dropped away from the secret shelf with a tired sigh, gun in hand. It was tossed into the bag without event. “Damn street suppressants.”

“They’re working just fine,” Matt insisted. “Anyone else wouldn’t be able to tell that you’re an omega.”

With little more than a wave and a scoff, Frank turned back to his bag to finish packing. “I don’t care if they know or not. Won’t do them any good when I’m kicking their teeth in. If I start scenting, though, that’ll be a problem.”

“I understand scenting in the field,” Matt took a careful whiff of the room as he moved in closer, noting that Frank’s smell wasn’t any stronger down here than it was in the hall, “but don’t you need some comfortable place to scent?”

Another scoff left him, this one lighter with a rough chuckle parting from Frank’s throat. “Like a nest?”

Matt laughed too, shaking his head. “Not exactly. Doesn’t it ever just mess you up? Not having a place that’s yours?”

“I have what’s mine.” He zipped up the bag and hefted it to the side. “Not everyone’s as territorial as you, Red.”

Not entirely sure why that pounded like a pointed insult rather than a friendly jab, Matt took it without pause, coming to stand by the desk where Frank had been sitting.

“If you’re not upset that I’m _here,_ and you’re not worried about people finding out that you’re an omega, why _are_ you so upset?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he hissed as he pulled two rifle cases from the ground and piled them onto the tote to carry them out of there in a stack. He first set them on the desk beside where Daredevil stood. He took the glock from the table and started to add it to his tote.

“Are you upset because _I_ found out?”

“Will you drop it? It has _nothing_ to do with me being an omega.”

“So it is _something.”_

The gun slammed back onto the table. “Yeah it’s _something_ alright. It’s you always being a pain in my ass. Where do you get off with your super sense of smell acting like you know everything? You talk like you _know_ me, as if you’ve ever been in my corner for longer than a night. _I don’t trust you._ When are you going to get that?”

“You’re upset because you don’t know anything about me, but I know stuff about you? It’s not exactly struck from your medical records, you know. Anyone could find it with a little bit of digging.”

Frank’s forearm was against his neck in the next moment, pressing him against the stone wall of the service area with a heated growl.

“You trying to say you’ve been _digging,_ pal?”

“Not me,” he said, his hand finding its way around Frank’s wrist. 

He knew that as soon as he pushed him off, it would be a fight. It wouldn’t be new for them, but a fight over this was different than Daredevil crashing through a skylight in time to stop the Punisher from killing some mafia head when there was more than enough evidence to just put the guy away.

This would be a fight over something personal. Losing wouldn’t be an option, as it would end with a bullet in Matt’s head. A win here, however, would be taken to heart.

Thus he decided to invent a third option to prevent the fight entirely. He’d submit, his hand unwrapping from Frank’s wrist to instead move to the clasps around his helmet.

The other moved away, his arm dropping from Matt’s chest as he dismissed the action.

“I don’t need to see who you-”

“Yes, you do. I think it’s good for you to know that we’ve met before.” As his helmet pulled away, the cool air of the room rushed to kiss his skin, his eyes blinking open a few times as he shook the sweat from his hair. “I’ve… I’ve been in your corner longer than you think, Frank.”

He wished not for the first time that he could see more details in human faces. He knew Frank had eyes, but he didn’t know where they were looking. He knew he had a mouth, but without a noise coming out of it, he couldn’t tell if it was in the shape of a snarl or parted in awe. He couldn’t see the twitches in Frank’s face as he rapidly processed the information before him.

“You’re that flaky lawyer?” he asked, rearing back with a grimace that became clearer with each word.

Matt chuckled, his hands clapping on either side of his helmet.

“You could say that.”

 _“Damn right_ I can say that. You skipped or were late to every hearing.”

“I had other things to deal with.” He held up his helmet, shaking it a bit to further hint to the nature of where he was. “You were better with Foggy, honestly, for as much as he didn’t like you. I wish I could have been there for you. Maybe if I’d been paying more attention, I could have prevented you from acting so stupidly.”

“Maybe playing into Fisk’s hand wasn’t my brightest moment,” he agreed. “I’d still do it over and over just to see you fall flat on your smug face again.”

Matt huffed with laughter and gestured with his arms stretched out. “So, is this enough? You have important, secret information regarding my personal identity. Seems like it _more_ than makes up for a few, little secrets you yourself say you don’t care about.”

With a contemplative hum, Frank crossed his arms and leaned back against the fuse box along the desk. “Sure, why not? Gotta ask one question though.”

Matt replaced his helmet. “Ask it. If I can answer, I will.”

“I seem to remember a white cane and a pair of sunglasses. Are you telling me you get around by _smell?”_

“Something like that.” A smirk spilled across the devil’s face. “Why don’t you let me help you take this stuff to whatever block you’ve parked your van? Then I’ll tell you about my super _hearing.”_


End file.
